FILL YOUR FACE WITH FOOD!

One of the most attractive personality traits a person can have is culinary curiosity, a willingness to explore and experiment. What does it taste like? Is it interesting? What on earth IS it? Sadly, such inquisitiveness is not common. If you mention fishballs, bitter melon, and dried oysters, for instance, to most people, their little faces will scrunch up in childlike anguish or totally blank moo expressions. They have never heard of it, it sounds NASTY, and they refuse to even think of trying it!
"Do you have burgers?", they will ask.

Or, if they've got issues, "do you have veggie burgers?"

[Opus the Penguin in Bloom County might request a herring burger instead. Extra mayo. Considering that he is a waterfowl, this is natural. And herring is godlike.]

Some of my best friends are indeed vegetarian, but their issues are primarily kashrus-related, and involve avoiding treif as well as the unnecessary cruelty to farm-animals for which agri-business is known.
And given that notably the European food industry does not seem to grasp the difference between pork, lamb, beef, or horsemeat, a certain amount of caution is not unjustified.
Anybody with kashrus or halal concerns is probably better off heading into vegetarian territory anyway, and the same goes for existential penguins.

Which, in Chinatown, may be difficult. Even those restaurants which serve vegetarian dishes will usually have vast scads of pork on the premises.
The pig, to the Chinese, is a marvelous beast.
Like ancient Celts, Cantonese people consider hogs magical.
A very fundament of civilized life.

[Little etymological note: the Chinese character for family (家) shows a pig (豕、豖) under a roof (宀). As graphemes go, it is extremely telling .]

By Chinatown standards, a restaurant that doesn't serve meat ('pig') is not really a restaurant. It's probably a place for white folks and Buddhists.
Or even white Buddhists.
What an extremely silly combination!


LET'S EAT!

The very idea of going out to sup with other people suggests variety. Chicken, duck, meat, seafood, and at the very least a textural dish comprised (mostly) of vegetable matter to round out the taste spectrum and complete the mouth-feel range.Definitely a starch of some sort, and perhaps also a soup and something deepfried.
And food must be shared; what's the point of everyone hogging their own plate and not at least tasting something else?

It has been a long time since I went out to eat with others. The last time was with folks from the office (which closed in November), and we had burgers.
Some people had vegan burgers.
No herring.

It's hard to get everyone on the same page as regards eating together, let alone the same plate. perhaps the best that can be hoped for is just one other person. Someone with a quirky willingness to try something new.
If I knew of a place with squid burgers, I'd definitely want to find someone else to invite along. That way we could also order a plate of salad in case the "meat" was not what we expected.
Or head over to Chinatown for some real food.


Just thinking at random, there's quite a lot of it.
And it can be happily shared.
See anything you like?

咖喱魚蛋、涼瓜豬肉、燒豬肉河粉湯、南乳豬手、椒鹽炸雞翼、叉燒、姜葱腰花、蠔油生菜、燒乳鴿、蝦醬芥蘭、咸菜炆豬肉、蒸海參扣、蒸滑雞、燒鴨、蝦球帶子粥、梅菜扣肉、咸魚肉餅、雪菜肉、排骨蒸飯、蔥花炸蠔、雲吞湯麵、炒肉絲、蒸五花腩、燒鵝、蒸水蛋、蒸魚、咖喱魷魚、薑蔥龍蝦、滷水鴨、豉油雞。

Heh.
I don't think they have squid burgers, though. That's strictly a white thing.
Much like vegan food.


慢慢食,吓。



NOTE: The Chinese term for fishball is 魚蛋 (yü daan), bitter melon is 苦瓜 (fu gwaa) or 涼瓜 (leung gwaa), dried oysters are 蠔豉 (ho si). The hamburger becomes 漢堡包 or 漢堡飽 (hon bou bau), that being a 'Han fortress bun'.
Kosher is 符合猶太教教規的食物 (fu hap yau taai gaau gaau kwai dik sik mat), "according with Judaic customs edibles". Halal is 符合清真教教規的食物 (fu hap ching jan gaau gaau kwai dik sik mat), "according with Islamic religious regulation edibles".
Respectively 猶太潔食 (yau taai git sik) and 清真食 (ching jan sik) for short.

Veganism, besides being quite ridiculous, is 純素食主義 (suen sou sik chu yi), "purely vegivorous ideology".



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